What is the max that you can put into practice minutes learning an O/D before you start to see diminishing returns?  Is there any strategy to the distribution of these minutes?  I've never explored this area much and would like to know what I'm missing if anything.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Beef

General consensus is that diminishing returns kicks in somewhere between 20-25 and that anything above 30 is just a waste on your part unless everyone's maxed out on everything.

Per the FAQ -- 25 minutes per offense or defense, 20 minutes per individual skill are the suggested caps unless you have nothing else to do with your minutes.

Posted by rednu on 2/8/2012 1:39:00 PM (view original):
Per the FAQ -- 25 minutes per offense or defense, 20 minutes per individual skill are the suggested caps unless you have nothing else to do with your minutes.

I've seen that on the player's guide, and honestly I think that's too conservative on individual skills. If a category is really important, and either (a) your player is starting with a dangerously low value in it, or (b) he's got high-high potential, or both, I think there's a strong case for going over 20 mins on that skill. And that can still be true even if you could allocate those minutes to something else (e.g. you're not maxed out everywhere else). Yes, you might see slightly diminishing returns, but that can still be a more effective use of mins than allocating more evenly across all ratings.

Posted by bhansalid00 on 2/9/2012 12:41:00 PM (view original):

Posted by rednu on 2/8/2012 1:39:00 PM (view original):
Per the FAQ -- 25 minutes per offense or defense, 20 minutes per individual skill are the suggested caps unless you have nothing else to do with your minutes.

I've seen that on the player's guide, and honestly I think that's too conservative on individual skills. If a category is really important, and either (a) your player is starting with a dangerously low value in it, or (b) he's got high-high potential, or both, I think there's a strong case for going over 20 mins on that skill. And that can still be true even if you could allocate those minutes to something else (e.g. you're not maxed out everywhere else). Yes, you might see slightly diminishing returns, but that can still be a more effective use of mins than allocating more evenly across all ratings.

Every situation is different.  I think it is wise to stay at 20 in individual skills USUALLY.  On the other hand, if you have a big man, with high high potential in REB and a weak number there now and say he also has high potential in ballhandling, I think you might be wise to go 25 REB and 15 BH rather than 20 on each.

Does anyone know if there are diminishing returns - per day - by going higher on individual skills or IQ?

For example, is there some type of 'penalty' to putting IQ at 50 each and almost no time on individual skills?

Late last season I tried to push my IQs up by putting very high numbers in off/def practice minutes.... my players were all maxed out on individual skills (just about anyway).  So, I figured why not put the IQ really high for the final few days of the season and see if I can get everyone to bump up on IQ?

If letter grades are based on just overall number of minutes practices (factoring intelligence and WE of each player as well) then this should help.

But if there is a penatly for practice too many minutes PER DAY than this would not help.  In my case, it seemed to help as I did see some increased IQ without any loss of individual skills (I guess it had not been enough days yet, even though all the players had virtually no practice minutes on several individual skills).

On the same note, I often practice 30-40 minutes in some skills if that is all the player has left based on potential.  Is this penalized (perhaps a better word is less efficient) in some way since the minutes are all at one practice?

Thoughts?

As far as I know there are no zero return or negative returns once you bypass a set amount of effort.  Every extra minute results in some amount of gain.

I don't know the exact rate of decline but here's an example:

for the first 15 minutes of daily practice, each minute returns 100% of growth
15 minutes of practice results in = 15 growth points, which is 100% overall efficiency.

if you increase your practice time to 20 minutes per practice, you may only see a 90% return on those additional 5 minutes.
You still would see the 15 growth points for the first 15 minutes, but with only a 90% return on the next 5 minutes you'd only see a net gain of 4.5 growth points for minutes 16-20 of practice
20 minutes of practice results in = 19.5 growth points, which is 97.5% overall efficiency

                                          %return    growth / total   overall
minutes between  1-15   100%        15.0 /  15       100%
minutes between 16-20    90%        19.5 /  20        97%
minutes between 21-25    70%        23.0 /  25        92%
minutes between 26-30    50%        25.5 /  30        85%
minutes between 31-35    40%        27.5 /  35        79%
minutes between 36-40    30%        29.0 /  40        72%
minutes between 41-45    20%        30.0 /  45        67%
minutes between 46-50    10%        30.5 /  50        61%

So the more time you practice a skill, the more gain you will see.
 

Very interesting.... thanks for the info.  I assume this is actually confirmed by seble or WIS in some manner?  Like you said, maybe not the exact decline, but the concept.

What if your practice time is:

Motion: 15 min
Zone: 15 min
Press: 15 min

Do you get 100% return across the board?